Leaders of the Oregon Press
NO. 1—A. E. VOORHIES
Twenty-seven years in the printing and newspaper business tells in a sentence the biography of A. E. Voorhies, president of the Oregon State Editorial association, and for more than twenty years publisher of the Rogue River Courier at Grants Pass. Yet within those twenty-seven years are crowded many experiences.
A year or so after graduation from the high school at Greenville, Mich., Mr. Voorhies entered the oflice of the Greenville Independent, at the end of six months being placed on the pay roll at $2 per week, and at the end of a year being paid $4 per week with no prospect of advancement.
Mr. Voorhies landed in Portland in the fall of 1891, and remained there during the period of financial depression, working in job ofiices whenever work could be secured and at other times doing any honorable job which would supply the one, two or three daily meals. Finally he went to work on the Portland Sun, a cooperative paper, with regular work but irregular pay. When this venture went on the rocks and everyone connected with the paper was broke, Mr. Voorhies secured a position with the Oregon Observer, at Grants Pass, as job printer, pressman, make-up man, reporter, solicitor, etc. When it became necessary to cut the force he was again broke, but had a wife, a bicycle and plenty of nerve (the latter absolutely necessary in the newspaper business).
Mr. Voorhies planned a trip to the metropolis by wheel, that being the only means of travel within his means, but before the day set for starting had arrived he was advised by a few business men, who offered to sign notes for the amount of the first payment, to buy the Courier. It took nerve to buy on so scant a capital, and nerve to continue business on a narrow margin. Starting with a capital of $0 and continuing year after year until a daily paper is launched and continued at high cost for seven or eight years, is a series of experiences which put wrinkles in the face and gray hairs in the crown, but these experiences are hallowed with lasting friendships as well as punctuated by such events as whiskey ring boycotts, libel suits, rival newspapers, and long hours of hard work.
During his twenty-three years of residence in Grants Pass, Mr. Voorhies has been connected with all the activities of the city, including the organization in 1899 of a company of national guard, which he served in various capacities and was commissioned captain before the company was finally disbanded in the reorganization of the national guard.
Mr. Voorhies is a firm believer in the school of journalism and its value to the newspaper fraternity, as well as to the students. He says there is no place in this generation for the hit and miss methods heretofore employed in conducting the newspaper business and that hereafter journalism will be recognized as a real profession and newspapers will be conducted by trained business men who have high ideals to live up to.
